I’m still sorting the 518 pics from The Christmas Party of the Century, so in the meantime I thought you might like a simple recipe for your holiday festivities.  These toffee bars are the best in the world!  Always a hit at any party.  Or fix up a plate of them and take them to your neighbors.  They will be your friends for life.  I promise.  They will want to mow your grass for you and take out your trash.  Just so you’ll make them another plate of these toffee bars.

Ingredients: brown sugar, butter, crackers, chocolate chips and pecans.  Easy.  And so wonderful you will want to eat the whole plate yourself.  Really.

Preheat your oven to 400°.  Put 1 cup brown sugar and 2 sticks butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

Looks yummy already, doesn’t it?  Bring this mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.

While that is coming to a boil, get out your cookie sheet/jelly roll pan and cover it with foil.

Slather butter all over the foil.  Such a lovely word: slather.  Just kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Butter.  Mmmmmmm.  Just makes anything better in my kitchen.

Cover the pan with a single layer of regular ol’ saltine crackers.  The ones with salt on them.  Don’t get those crazy ones with unsalted tops.  How dull are those?

See?  Cover the pan.  For my pan it takes almost a whole sleeve of crackers.

Looks like I had 6 crackers left over.  I felt the need to give you all the details today.

By now, your brown sugar/butter should have come to a nice, rolling boil.  Boil it for 3 minutes.  From the time it gets to its full boil.

The 3 minutes is kind of important.  I set a timer.  And could you please send someone over to clean my timer?  Apparently I’ve splashed some boiling liquids on it one time too many.

When the timer goes off, pour the yummy toffee mixture over all the crackers.

Cover the crackers with all that buttery toffee goodness.

Spread it all around to cover all the crackers edge to edge.  I use a spatula or the back of a spoon.  Now put this in your 400° oven for 5 minutes.  (Set the timer again.)

When you pull it out of the oven, it will be all bubbly and roiling and surrounding the crackers.  See how some of the crackers are out of place?  I use my spoon again to push them all into their lined-up-in-a-row places.  I’m compulsive about things like that.

See how good it looks?  I want to drink the whole pan right now.  Except for the fact that it would burn all the taste buds clean off my tongue.  That’s a pretty strong argument for waiting until they cool.

Wait about a minute for all the bubbles to settle down a bit.

Sprinkle the whole 12 ounce package of chocolate chips over the top of the toffee.  You can use semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips.  Whatever you and your family prefer.  Either one works great.

Pause another minute for the chips to melt.

Pause.

A minute.

Then use the back of the spoon again to spread the chips all around.

Immediately sprinkle the chopped nuts all over the top of the chocolate.  I use pecans but I suppose you could use walnuts if you like them better.

I use about a cup of chopped pecans.  But you can use as little as a half cup.  Or I suppose if you’re Janna, who hates nuts, you could go without.  But it wouldn’t be nearly as good.  I wonder if Janna makes these sans nuts?

Now comes the hard part.  You have to wait for these to cool.  I mean really cool.  I get impatient and put them in the fridge.  Immediately.  Which, of course, turns my fridge into an oven and cooks all the veggies and hard boils the eggs.  You do remember that I am prone to exaggeration, right?

After they are good and cool, pull off the foil and break them into little pieces.  Or big pieces.  Whatever size pieces you want.  See how the crackers provide a crunchy layer inside the toffee?  Yum.

And when people ask me what’s inside, I love to tell them to turn them over and tell me what they see.  See how you can see the crackers?  But they usually guess graham crackers and are surprised to know they are regular saltines.  Sweet and salty together is a good match.  Ever had chocolate covered pretzels?  I rest my case!

Pile them all up on a pretty snowman plate and try not to eat the whole thing before Dear Hubby gets home from work.  Or before the Christmas Party of the Century.  For which you have made these to take along.

Easy printable recipe here:  World’s Best EasyToffee Bars

Back to sorting party pics.  I’ll be doing party postings soon.  Promise. 

Stay tuned.

Hugs,
Barb